On "Personal Foundations of Self-Forming through Auto-Identifications with Otherness" by Nelly Reifler (3041 words) ***

This story discusses philosophical ideas about identity in the form a squirrel who thinks she's a rat, which made me wonder whether I've ever enjoyed a work before written from the point of view of an animal. Read the story here at Barcelona Review. 

On "Identity" by Felipe Alfau (4636 words) *****

In Alfau's introductory story to Locos, we start with a character--or person--who is slated to be important. That is his role in life. But no matter what he does, he is ignored. The premise seemed so much like the lives of many I know, including myself. We want our lives to amount to something, but in the end, all our artistic endeavors or service endeavors or whatever we do seem to go nowhere far. We trudge on in anonymity, questioning our existence. That is Fulano, who volunteers to be part of the Alfau's novel in an effort to gain some importance. It is suggested the Fulano commit suicide to start the novel, so he sets about that course of action. He won't really do it, but he'll leave a note and disappear mysteriously, making him the center of action--except that when he does do it, he is the victim of a thief, who seeing Fulano drop his possessions and his suicide note in the streets, absconds with the items and makes the suicide note his own, leaving his own possessions with the note in its stead. The story becomes then a vehicle to right this wrong. Read the story here at Barcelona Review.

On "Respectful Beatings for Very Good Help" by G. K. Wuori (5220 words) ***

Much is in the details. In G. K. Wuori's short story, two women, newly arrived to the United States, struggle to make sense of the world around them--this American world, this American work world. Expectations regarding what is acceptable and what is not clash. But growing trouble eventually becomes too large even for those used to different standards of behavior. Action must be taken. Enter an insane old man, whose command of riches allows for such problems to be solved.

But I said that much is in the details. Part of the charm of this piece comes from its mastery of the English language--or lack thereof. Our narrator has mastered the language but not yet many of its nuances and turns of phrase, and as a result, the occasional odd phrasing hits just the right note. Read the story here at the Workplace Anthology or here at the Barcelona Review.

On "Floater" by Brett Rosenblatt (2746 words) ****

Let's talk about a cruise, a cruise you don't want to be on, a cruise recommended to you by your analyst, a cruise as recovery from a marriage gone bad. That's what Rosenblatt's "Floater" is about. What makes it so fun, though, is the voice.

Years ago, on first reading Catcher in the Rye, it was the voice that astounded me there. The voice had attitude. Attitude makes for great writing. But it can also make for bad writing, if it's overdone. Finding the balance is harder to achieve than one might initially think. Rosenblatt does that here. And what makes the surly, don't-want-to-be-here voice so much more interesting is that it's happening on vacation. If there's any time to lay off the cynicism, an expensive trip on a ship is it. Not our narrator, though. He really isn't happy to be alive. And somehow we're glad to hear that. Read it here at the Barcelona Review.

On "Trauma Plate" by Adam Johnson (5624 words) ****

I don't stay at Motel 6. It's nothing personal. I actually think Motel 6 is a great chain if you're looking to save some dollars. I wish, in fact, that I could stay at Motel 6. I don't stay there, though. I don't stay there because of my mom. I don't stay there because my mom once heard of dangers that lurk at Motel 6's. Someone got robbed or stabbed or beaten, and it was at a Motel 6, and now Motel 6 is banned from my life. It is banned because my mom hounded me until I promised never to stay at a Motel 6 again. So I don't stay at Motel 6's. In the literal letter-of-the-law words of the promise, I could stay at Jo Bob's Country Motel with Color TV for twenty dollars a night, but no Motel 6.

Adam Johnson's story "Trauma Plate" is about a similar kind of irrationalism, the way media and marketers feed on our fear. And fear, fear is a great way to sell things, for if the easiest things to sell are things we need, rather than just desire, than we will do anything to have such things, will spend on money there before we'll by that new pair of Adidas shoes. In Johnson's story, that fear is one of being shot, one that makes people wear Kevlar and other body armor as an everyday accessory. And why not? We'd certainly be safer with it on (though why not just aim for the head if everyone has his or her heart covered?). (Would I too fall into such fear? I sometimes wonder. I can walk a street at night with not too much fear, but were I ever mugged, would my attitude change? Would I insist on driving to destinations at night rather than walking? Would I start carrying maize? One doesn't know until the unfortunate happens to one's self.)

But of course, Johnson's story is about more than literal body armor. It's about the figurative armor we wear around our hearts, the things we do to protect our emotions and ourselves, and what removing such armor suggests about love. Read the story here at the Barcelona Review.

On "Executing Dexter" by Brian Leung (4628 words) *****

I first became aware of Brian Leung's work in college, in a writing workshop actually, where he was a student the same as I was. Even then, his talent was obvious. We shared two workshops together, spaced a little more than a year apart. In that year, he'd gone from being good to being obviously on his way to something larger than those around us. Next time we came across one another, he was a graduate student at the same college, doing a creative writing option, and he filled in one day for the teacher--and there I was, still an undergrad, on my last semester granted, but feeling small nonetheless. And then he was off to Indiana University for an MFA.

A few years after that, I was at the Yalobusha Review as an editor, and I was desperate for some decent material. The previous year's editor suggested I solicit work, rather than just wait around for stuff to come to me, and so I wrote to one of my former instructors about people whose work she might send our way. She suggested Brian and passed along an e-mail address. Brian submitted--a good piece about this photographer named René. Unfortunately, in the meantime, I'd ended up with four other good stories. So now I had five good stories, and there was room for six. The problem was that one of those five good stories was over sixty pages long--it was a novella essentially, the length of four stories. So my choice was to accept the novella and two other stories, or take the four shorter stories, reject the novella, and publish two other stories I was only halfway satisfied with. I chose the first option, which meant I had to write Brian and let him know we couldn't publish his piece, though I'd really wanted to. He took it graciously.

The next time I came across Brian's work was in a magazine, a piece called "Six Ways to Jump Off a Bridge," which was published in Story's very last issue or in the second-to-last issue. I'd been on-and-off long-time subscriber, so finding Brian suddenly in its pages was rather exciting. That story would later end up in Brian's book of short stories, World Famous Love Acts. I'd come across that collection, the winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize, by Sarabande books, because of Amazon.com about five years later.

You see, a short while before that I'd come across Brock Clarke's fiction in an issue of the Georgia Review, and an interest in his work had sparked me to buy his first book of stories, which had also won the Mary McCarthy Prize--Amazon being the only place that stocked it (none of our local chain booksellers being the type to stock small press titles). Amazon's recommendations, as unimaginatively perceptive as they often are, then proceeded to believe I'd be interested in anything that had won the Mary McCarthy Prize and recommended Brian's book when it came out a year later. Again, surprise. This time, I looked Brian up on the Internet, found out he was now teaching at Cal State Northridge and wrote him a short note to congratulate him. We caught up on what had happened to us over the past decade, and then I bought his book, read it, and was--typically--impressed. Three stories in particular stood out. My favorite was a piece called "Drawings by Andrew Warhol," which Brian told me after I'd read the book, was to be made into a movie. Perhaps, you can catch it on DVD somewhere (I don't think it was going to be feature length, so there's little chance you'll see it in the cinema, unfortunately). But one of my other favorites was "Executing Dexter."

Perhaps the best thing about the Barcelona Review is the way it makes available online work of some published authors that might slip under the radar otherwise, reprinting stories from collections with the author's permission. And one of those stories that it has republished is "Executing Dexter." The story is about two boys who run pretend baby executions for fun, but their seeming cruelty bespeaks other familial problems they both have at home. Both the ending and the beginning of this story are likely to hit you in the gut. Read it here.